My new job

I have the most exciting job in design right now!

What’s my job?
I lead a team of designers who follow user-centred design methodologies to help inform the design of Ubuntu; we lend our skills to a huge range of Open Source applications. It is our job to add our skills, knowledge of user behaviour and user data we gather to the ‘re-use and improve’ ethos of Free and Open Source Software. Of course, there is a great deal of work that we have to do for Canonical – the website, for example, needs some design love quite promptly – but a major focus of our work is to make ourselves available to the community and their projects.

Who are Canonical and what is this Ubuntu?
For those of you who don’t know, Canonical is the corporate sponsor of the Open Source project Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a Linux distribution. An operating system. An alternative to Windows and Mac OS. An operating system is the thing that translates what you want to do into language the hardware, your computer, can understand. Ubuntu set out to be a Linux distribution for ‘human beings’ and has achieved a massive following and user base thanks to the fact that it works, it’s easy to use and it’s free.

Why have a design team?
The Open Source community is enormous and has produced a vast array of software which is free for all of us to use. For a variety of reasons – some of which I will try and address in various blog posts and conversations – there are more developers than designers in that community. Most of the applications run really well and have a huge amount of functionality. Some of them have great user interfaces. The skills required to produce great code are not the same as those required to produce usable and engaging interfaces, and this is where we come in.

What makes it exciting?
We get to help Ubuntu make the next step! With combined technology and design efforts Ubuntu can be truly awesome. And, by the way, it’s free!